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Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

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Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#51

Post by commandlinefan »

pastor_elm wrote: post #40

>"She once had her own office, secretaries and assistants, along with titles like “director” that spoke to her decades of experience. Now, she’s a temp — one of many. >Levi was laid off from her job at a law office during a merger in early 2015, and has struggled to find long-term work. In late 2016, she filed for bankruptcy." How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing…

I think about this a lot. I've always been a bit concerned with pricing myself out of the market. I've never really fought particularly hard for pay raises, but I have kept up my education and experience and my pay has risen pretty consistently, putting me in a very comfortable salary range. But I still consider the possibility that the bottom could drop out completely and every employer in the US could collectively decide that programmers aren't worth what they're paying us and find myself settling for a lot less than I've been used to. Before I got married and had kids, I organized my life around that possibility - I never put myself into a position where I _needed_ the paycheck I was getting. Since getting married and having two kids, though? My wife and I both make high salaries and we're still barely breaking even every month. It's all disposable stuff - lots of vacations, eating out several times a week, a handful of extracurricular activities for the kids; all stuff we could cut out in a heartbeat... _if_ she was willing to. Honestly, I'm not as worried about potentially losing earning potential as I am about convincing my wife that we have to make some cuts if we ever find ourselves in that position.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#52

Post by nine_k »

ballenf wrote: post #47
prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

Here's what I see: fewer unemployed people around me, but the employed are deep in debt and gradually slipping deeper into it. Standard of living hasn't gone down, but it's financed with debt while interest rates are creeping up.

"Financed with debt" is another way to say "Can't afford".

You can finance an enterprise with debt because it may produce income, and the debt will be repaid. But financing consumption with increasing debt is... dangerous at best.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#53

Post by gaius »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

Plot the chart of GDP vs GDP/capita. In the UK that tells you everything you need to know about the true state of the economy.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#54

Post by wufufufu »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

4 out of 5 of your examples are about income inequality, which isn't the same as how strong the economy is IMO. Everyone could be living in a shack and the poverty line = no shack and by your definition the economy would be strong if everyone could afford a new shack if their current one collapsed.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#55

Post by nradov »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

You would expect to see average wages decrease as companies hire less experienced, less productive workers who are just starting new jobs. So in a way it could be sort of a good sign since those workers wouldn't have found jobs at all when the economy was weaker, but it's hard to tell what's really going on based on that data.

(I agree the economy still isn't good for many people.)

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#56

Post by pishpash »

Endama wrote: post #32
bargl wrote: post #30

The economy and the education system are out of sync. We are turning out a TON of degrees for a few jobs and expecting people to be able to just succeed based on a 4 year degree program. All the while the economy does expect a 4 year degree for some jobs that really shouldn't. So you're expected to waste money on a degree you don't need to work a job that won't help you pay back your degree because they aren't paying…

Teacher friends of mine talk to me about how their job is next to impossible. The curriculum in the schools is basically perpetually 12 years behind, students today are just now being taught stuff that the market is now responding to but the fundamentals that are needed for those skills should have been introduced years prior. Educators are effectively trying to project 12 years out and try and guess what the market…

This sounds like a gross exaggeration. Twelve years out? Are first-graders being taught the latest framework or something? Except that maybe it shouldn't stretch out for twelve years, pre-college education is learning the fundamentals that do not depend on the job market. The fundamentals haven't changed in hundreds of years.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#57

Post by CompelTechnic »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

Many of the facts you stated are relatively invariant to the strength of the economy. I do not have good sources to describe how they have changed over time, but I would assume that points 1,3,4, and 5 are true nearly all the time. Additionally, for point 2, real wages going down on a timespan of 1 year is essentially noise in the face of rising real wages by various measures by FRED.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=real%3Bwages

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#58

Post by toomuchtodo »

nine_k wrote: post #52
ballenf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I see: fewer unemployed people around me, but the employed are deep in debt and gradually slipping deeper into it. Standard of living hasn't gone down, but it's financed with debt while interest rates are creeping up.

"Financed with debt" is another way to say "Can't afford". You can finance an enterprise with debt because it may produce income, and the debt will be repaid. But financing consumption with increasing debt is... dangerous at best.

As someone else said in the thread [1], just existing in America is very expensive. It’s easy to conflate consumption vs necessary expenses needing to be financed, but you do what you have to do.

It takes 20 years of nothing going wrong to escape poverty [2]. Imagine how easy it is to get back there.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594826

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/economi...

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#59

Post by acchow »

makecheck wrote: post #31
jblow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to work out a system, then, to figure out who pays to employ the people doing unprofitable work. Not as easy as it sounds.

Lots of things are profitable but never absurdly and increasingly profitable , which is the trap we are now in. There’s no credit given for having a tidy business with steady profit. Instead you have to have “growth” and other this-quarter-must-be-better-than-last-quarter-or-else crap that “investors” want.

> but never absurdly and increasingly profitable

You are in a tech bubble. Absurd profitability is not required elsewhere.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#60

Post by cabaalis »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

All valid points, but I believe "strong economy" versus "personal wealth" are very different measures, and have been conflated in the past when it suited various arguments.
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